Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Lit Hub Weekly

Lit
Hub WeeklyMarch 13 - 17, 2017

TODAY: In
1932, John Updike is born.

·By
publishing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s long-lost
short story “The I.O.U.,” the New Yorker will
provide a happy ending to their “doomed,
romantic” relationship with the writer. | The New Yorker

·“I
realized the embarrassing parts were most
moving to me.” An interview with Elif Batuman. | Vulture

·S.E.
Hinton’s beloved novel The Outsiders turns 50 this
month and will
soon have its own museum, an initiative spearheaded by
superfan Danny O’Connor. | The New
York Times

·“We can
rewrite our own
dystopian reality.” On the usefulness—and limits—of
interpreting Trump’s presidency through dystopian fiction. | The Nation

·On the
writing of Grace Paley, which embeds “us in slow daily time in order to
confront us, obliquely or directly, with urgent
historical time.” | The
Atlantic

·More than 200,000 Americans, including Hanya Yanagihara,
Salman Rushdie, and Neil Gaiman, have called on Congress to reject
the proposed federal budget, which will cut funding to the
NEA and NEH. | PEN America